


A Cup Filled with Listening

by the_rck



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender, Dreaming of Sunshine - Silver Queen
Genre: Angst, Gen, Reincarnation, Shadow!Shikako, Shadows - Freeform, Spirit World, Tea
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-10
Updated: 2020-01-10
Packaged: 2021-02-27 14:02:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,482
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22108297
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_rck/pseuds/the_rck
Summary: Iroh poured two cups but, after setting it on the opposite side of the table from himself, didn't touch the second. "For whatever ghosts may pass," he murmured. It was politeness, he told himself, not superstition. "Be welcome as I would wish my lost ones to be at any table."The shadows in his cabin coalesced so slowly that he didn't notice it happening until there was a figure, more absence of light than anything physical, kneeling by the other cup. "I have missed tea." The figure reached out human shaped hands and wrapped them around the cup.
Comments: 36
Kudos: 882
Collections: Dreaming of Sunshine Exchange 2019 B, Heliocentrism — a Dreaming of Sunshine recursive collection





	A Cup Filled with Listening

**Author's Note:**

  * For [GriffinHeart](https://archiveofourown.org/users/GriffinHeart/gifts).



> Thanks to Charientist for beta reading.
> 
> Title from Terrance Hayes's "Twenty Measures of Chitchat."

**Shikako**  
My third life had begun with an Air Nomad mother whose name I never knew. Air Nomads didn't allow unnecessary opportunities for emotional attachment. When I was first born, I was pleased by that because I had raw places where my family used to be. I didn't want to replace them.

Once my eyes could focus, I recognized the tattoos. I cried for days because I couldn't warn them. I didn't even know when I was. I might be generations before canon. I hoped desperately that I was.

Maybe the Fire Nation wouldn't attack during my lifetime. I didn't know the name of the current Avatar, not even which nation had produced them, or the name of the Fire Lord. I wasn't sure I'd recognize the names anyway, not with decades in Konohagakure between me and watching the TV show, or that the names in canon weren't common. In my new life, I knew three girls named Eilo, and I didn't know everyone in the Eastern Air Temple. Recognizing a name wouldn't help if there were thousands of people using it.

You can't assume that every 'John Smith' is the Doctor.

Still, I hadn't even heard of anyone with a name that sounded important, so I hoped. 

Until the comet appeared. 

Even then, I remembered that the comet was supposed to come once every century, so I still hoped I was very, very early. I was four; even with all my memories, I couldn't fight off the entire Fire Nation. I couldn't even tip the balance while the adults fought. I'd been working on the physical side of things, but I didn't have weapons, and all I'd managed as far as chakra went was my shadow state.

I was almost certain, even then, that I wasn't an airbender. My best guess is that my soul was tied to shadows. I'd made choices in my second life that meant that the shadows weren't going to let me leave them behind, not ever.

The Fire Nation attacked at noon, and I remembered, then, that firebenders needed sun. I could have slept the night before. If I'd remembered sooner, I could have saved more people. 

One of the adults herded us younger kids into a storage room that was the closest thing we had to a hiding place. It was also a trap because the only way out was the door we'd come in by. I think the adults hoped that they'd all be dead before we were found so they wouldn't have to watch us die.

Or, maybe, they simply didn't realize that the Fire Lord meant for all of the Air Nomads to die. The concept of genocide was alien to a pacificist culture like theirs.

I remembered Uzushio and the Uzumaki. I remembered the history of my first world, deliberate slaughter after deliberate slaughter. I knew how this part of the story went. I knew where the Avatar was and why he wouldn't rescue us. There were a lot of parts of the story I'd forgotten, but I remembered the 'last airbender' part of the title clearly. We were surplus population for the plot.

I had changed the story before, but I'd also had more time. 

When the smoke started making us choke, I stood next to the door, made the rat seal, and yanked the shadow solid around us. I twisted light and the absence of light, bending it the way I'd felt adults bend air. I hoped for a shield, a way to hide; I got a portal. I had no idea where it led, but the other alternative was death, so I twisted us through. 

There was no falling about this going into the Black, not even jumping. I was there. I had always been there. I would always be there. I could still feel the others around me. I didn't feel _me_ , but they were still there, and their terror burned. I turned my shadows inside out to get rid of them and dumped them-- and myself-- in the Spirit World.

It's a good thing I was only four. If I'd had adult stamina, the hole between the human world and the spirit realm might have been permanent. It also might have grown instead of closing behind us because I probably wouldn't have evicted myself from the Black with the others. The Black removed pain, and I had enough self to know how much leaving would hurt.

I wasn't wrong.

I don't know what happened next, only that, when I did become aware, none of us were completely human any more. We also weren't in Kansas any more. None of the kids understood what had happened to the adults or that I was responsible for our escape. They'd taken care of my stumbling body because that was what Air Nomads did rather than because my shadows guarded us all, day and night.

I had stretched myself beyond bearing, so I went in and out of awareness for months, possibly-- okay, probably-- for years. Time was weird even after I became myself again because linear time is a human thing and we kept becoming less and less human. We also kept going deeper in the Spirit World because none of the other kids even knew to look for a way back.

I should have left them. They would have been fine. Probably. Maybe. But those who abandon their comrades are scum. They were children, and I... wasn't.

Over time, each child-- all but me-- found a place where they belonged. Then I searched for a way back to the human world. No world was better for a century of war, and I still knew where to find the Avatar. More time for the kid to prepare would be better. Had to be.

But I was late.

I was lucky that I recognized Zuko's scar. I didn't remember his name, but I remembered the scar, and I remembered his uncle. The odds were good that I could trust the scarred guy's uncle.

Their shadows were a little darker when they returned to their ship. They were a clear hook to the canon story. I wasn't enthusiastic about the ocean part of things, but I probably wouldn't get seasick unless I tried to regain human form.

I was all shadow and completely lacking emotional attachments in this world, so the risk of talking to the firebenders had more to do with wasted time than with fear of losing my family or even of T&I. I might not be able to swim away, might not be able to leave before it reached land again, but I could definitely hide even if they tried to trap me.

There was no way that there wasn't a shadow to hide in along the bottom of the ship. Firebenders wouldn't be able to touch me there, not without a dry dock.

Most of my heartbreak and fear came from knowing I'd lost a century in the Spirit World. It hadn't been up to me, but I'd really expected that I had only lost a year or three. A decade at most. It hadn't felt like a century passing.

There were so many lives I had hoped to save.

**Iroh**  
Iroh acquired a shadow the first time they visited the Eastern Air Temple. He didn't notice. Zuko didn't notice. No one in the crew noticed.

The first Iroh knew about it was when he made himself tea in his cabin two weeks later. He made a full pot because he still hoped that his nephew would join him. There were so many things he could tell Zuko, but the boy wasn't ready to hear them, might never be.

Iroh wasn't sure he could bear losing his nephew, too. At least, at this point, Zuko was starting to heal physically. The emotional wounds, however...

Iroh poured two cups but, after setting it on the opposite side of the table from himself, didn't touch the second. "For whatever ghosts may pass," he murmured. It was politeness, he told himself, not superstition. "Be welcome as I would wish my lost ones to be at any table."

The shadows in his cabin coalesced so slowly that he didn't notice it happening until there was a figure, more absence of light than anything physical, kneeling by the other cup. "I have missed tea." The figure reached out human shaped hands and wrapped them around the cup.

Iroh thought the voice sounded female, but he wasn't sure if pitch and resonance worked the same for spirits as for people. He bent a few degrees from the waist then straightened. "I have many blends if you would like to try them. We won't reach land again for a few days, so there's not much to do. Unless you play pai-sho?"

"I've never learned, but I wouldn't mind being taught." The outlines of the figure became more human, and the being lifted the cup and inhaled audibly. "Oh, that's nice! My mother loved jasmine green. Wait-- Jasmine white?" The fact that the spirit didn't have facial features made them hard to read, but Iroh thought they were genuinely pleased rather than feigning delight.

Iroh laughed softly. He didn't want to risk anyone coming to investigate if he was too loud. "I prepare the more delicate blends myself. Getting the temperature exactly right isn't a thing the galley has time for, not with so many mouths to feed." He'd never admit aloud that part of the problem was that no one in the crew could cook even the basics well.

Not assigning them a cook was petty spite. Better that than assassins.

The crew would learn to cook. Iroh could give them time, and Zuko was still too angry to notice anything but that he had enough calories to burn. No one else expected the food to be good. It usually wasn't in the Navy.

Iroh let himself enjoy his tea for several moments. Then he risked a question. "You do not seem like a sea spirit. When did you come aboard?"

"I misjudged the time," the spirit said. "I didn't expect the Dragon of the West to be there when I came back. I didn't expect... I hoped-- Well, yes."

"Misjudged the time?" Iroh kept the words as gentle as he could.

"Time is funky in the Spirit World. One valley might feel like an hour but be years. Or the other way around. I don't know enough about poetry and metaphors to navigate well." The spirit shrugged. "I also really hoped I'd be human again." The words sounded a little sad. "This is great for sneaking and all that, but--"

Iroh kept his expression serene. The spirit was being far too open for someone who had hesitated to reveal themself to him, so if they had waited, it wasn't out of fear of what he could do. "You were human? I know that happens, but I had thought it rare."

There was a moment of silence. "It's the coming back that's rare, not the going, not the changing." The spirit set down their cup, turned without standing up to present Iroh with a profile and raised a hand in the air. "And I alone am escaped to tell thee!" the spirit declaimed.

"I don't recognize the quotation," Iroh said as mildly as he could.

The spirit sighed a little over-dramatically then turned back toward Iroh. "It's just as well. The it only being me part, I mean. Probably the delay part, too. If I'd come back eighty or ninety years ago, especially like this, I wouldn't wait for the Avatar." The spirit's hands flexed and grew cutting edges. "He's kind of crap at the ruthlessness thing, and I'm _good_ at it."

Iroh inhaled slowly, finally letting himself feel some relief that this wasn't the Avatar. "He?"

The spirit waved a hand. "He'll return when England's need is greatest. It just sucks when the need exists but hasn't reached that level yet. At least, it sucks for all the victims."

Iroh wanted to ask what England was, but he suspected he'd be chasing a skunk-bear. Other parts of the spirit's idiom weren't familiar. He put those aside as also not currently relevant. He didn't like the sparks of anger in the spirit's words. He sipped his tea. He set the cup down and bowed slightly to the spirit. "I'm sorry for your pain. My abilities do not reach so far as to undo things that happened a century ago."

"I know that, General Iroh," the spirit replied. "It is cold comfort for the dead, however, yours or mine."

"The Eastern Air Temple," he said.

"Yes." The spirit sipped their tea for the first time. "Oh, good! I wasn't sure that would work." The spirit drank more before going on. "The nuns shoved everyone under seven into a storeroom in the back. We heard the screams, smelled the burning. I think the smoke would have gotten us before the soldiers did." The spirit shrugged. "Then we weren't there any more."

Of course, there must have been children in the air temples. Iroh put one hand over his eyes for a few second. The children had been the point for Sozin. "How old were you?"

The spirit coughed. "I'm not sure. I don't remember what the nuns called me, either."

Iroh recognized the evasion and the distraction but could see no point in pursuing the topic. "You don't want to learn pai-sho." He meant it as an acknowledgement that the spirit hadn't revealed themself-- herself? --simply for companionship. The spirit hadn't made threats, not direct ones, but they had made it clear that they could affect the physical world.

They'd been on the ship for two weeks without being spotted or heard even once. The spirit could have killed the entire crew in the first few hours. The spirit still could.

Iroh doubted anyone on the ship could breathe through solidified shadow. That would be slower than cutting throats or snapping necks-- which he was certain the spirit had strength enough for-- but it would be quieter. Below decks or at night--

"Oh, I do!" the spirit interrupted Iroh's thoughts. The spirit sounded enthusiastic. "And I can teach you games. I want to learn other things, too. I have a lot to do, but I don't remember-- It'll take forever for me to figure out the context for all the fragments I've got. We might as well play pai-sho while you teach me history and geography. Also..." The spirit spread their hands wide. "I kind of need to steal your white lotus tile. I don't know what it looks like yet." The edges of the spirit's form sharpened. "Teach me, General, and we can change the world."

Iroh squashed every one of his questions and smiled. He hoped the expression didn't look forced. "More tea?"


End file.
